Happy Birthday
by AmberPalette
Summary: MAJOR  MANGA SPOILERS. If, in his last moments, Gin had an extended goodbye for Rangiku, this is how I would envision it. My way of final farewell to an animanga that had potential but became sensationalism, and my sad goodbye to an OTP.


**Happy Birthday**

**A Bleach vignette by Amber C. S.**

**In final farewell Ichimaru Gin**

**In tribute to Gin X Rangiku**

**And in final farewell to the animaga**

"_I've decided. I'm going to become a Shinigami. Become a Shinigami and change things. So that they'll end...without Rangiku having to cry."~Bleach, chapter 416, by Tite Kubo._

Being splayed on the ground like a disemboweled serpent gives ya time to seriously ruminate. Mostly, I think on promises I made to myself as a young child.

I remember a day when we were adolescents. She tugged me along by the hem of my billowing fuku-taichou's attire to a cluster of shops in Rukongai. She said "Gin, today was the day we met."

"Guess that'd mean it's your birthday, ne, Rangiku?" I took her hand.

I dug in my fingers, into those crevices between her knuckles. Milky apricot-flesh softness. My fingers were steel rods.

I always want to hurt things. So I made me a real good effort not to push until my fingertips drew blood between her knuckles. I snarled inside myself no, Gin, this is the person that must never be hurt. Never. Never. Never.

My fingers curled around her palm instead, like infant snakes.

She didn't flinch. She never flinches at my flares of sadism, which for her I meticulously monitor. "That's what it means," she affirmed.

Strawberry hair snatched the sunlight like a cascading golden thief.

I wanted to tear it all out and kiss it, all at once.

That sunlight wrapped around the swell of her breasts like it was licking them.

I wanted to follow suit.

Her eyes were such an odd contrast to the jolly, boisterous, half-drunk persona she always donned, they were large and grieving, the color of the sky between rain and radiant sunlight.

That was the moment I realized my Rangiku was a woman, and that there were parts of her dangerously exposed to being possessed by other men and other things.

I don't like sharing.

So I went in a shop and bought a long silk sash, the hue of a strawberry creamsicle, or a baby's flushed cheeks. An object of finery for a slum child whom I had always known deserved more. I laced it around her hair, tied it too tight, then reminded myself again, and massaged her scalp with my snake-fingers. "Happy birthday."

She declared she'd rather wear it draped over her shoulders so it drew attention to her bosom.

I snickered and shrugged, and she scowled at me for not taking this grave cosmetic decision seriously, and adjusted it to fit, and her eyes danced, and before even I could think to dodge she kissed me, and flash-stepped like a flirtatious, flitting lark down the street.

And that was it. There was really no going back.

A hand touches my bloodied face, and I realize I've been carried away with memories.

Anxiety fills me. She was not supposed to come. That was why I disabled her with Shinsou. She's gotta get away. I gotta think of some way to push out last goodbyes fast.

I can't move. I blurt the first thing that comes to mind. "Don't stop…counting the days now."

She smiles.

It's alright. If she is smiling, maybe it wasn't all a failure. The cost in blood and power and decency, the mangled liasons and severed limbs, I can cast aside with no regrets, if at the end her face is radiant as it is meant to be. As it is always meant to be. Always.

I think sometimes, all my life, when I smiled, maybe it was no good since it's such a reptile's smile, but it was me carrying her smile for her, when she couldn't do it for herself. So that, in a way, it was always there.

Yeah. It's a good thing she's smiling now. I can't seem to bring one back to my face. Not right this minute, anyway.

Maybe it's the blood loss making my brain dizzy. But it's like the past and present are layered on top of each other again, like transparent sheets. And now she is that dirty-faced little girl I found bruised with knobby weak ankles and full chapped lips and a single mole, fallen in the dust, the girl I fed a persimmon and started loving with terrifying ease. Handing over the damn dried persimmon was, in fact, harder than loving her.

Only now I am the one who has collapsed, and she is the one standing over me, entreating me to get back up. But I've failed for sure, because I can't. I'm soaked and slippery with something wet and warm. I go to tweak her nose, pet the mole beneath her lips, with my hand, and realize that arm is missing.

Her tears, which still rain down her cheeks like a cloudburst of pain, are baptizing me, and I think I am laughing a little, croaking out just a little mirth, cause it's so absurd to think of me being baptized. I decide maybe I should borrow a few of them, since I can't cry and never could.

Finally she speaks.

"I won't stop counting the days, because now they're what's between me and seeing you again."

"Sorry," I rasp, as the warmth hums and beckons, making it so hard to think, and then, "so now I guess it's happy birthday again…ne?"

Aizen is coming. Kurosaki is coming too. The worst is still coming.

"You should go," I prompt her. I find my smile again. It's shaking, which is kinda annoying.

Rangiku shakes her head. Her hair drizzles all over me and tickles my neck. My pulse. I shiver. If it meant we could go together someplace good and light and cozy, like the places we used to go to get out of the long winter snows, I would grasp her with my remaining limbs and absorb her into me, saturate us with each other. But with Rangiku, I never could be selfish. It's a damned shame.

"Don't worry, they'll let me harvest persimmons in hell."

"You aren't going to hell."

This time, I am sure I laugh.

She joins me, a moist and fond series of soft hoots. My reflection is cradled in her eyes. I really am a mess.

"…then I gotta go. So you will."

I see the clenching of her features and I know she is thinking, you always do this to me. I feel even sorrier, and even gladder that one day, long ago, I apologized to her. For trying all my life and still not getting back what was taken from the one person who should never be wounded or sad. For everything.

I let her see my eyes, I make them wide and clear and steady for her.

"I love you," she gasps. She drapes something soft and silken, something pink, over me. Her birthday present of ages past. My burial shroud, I guess.

I clench it with the hand I have left. With the words I cannot say, but have felt for goddamn hundreds of years. With the feeling of shredding inside that comes with parting from the other half of a soul. I wonder what bylaws the shinigami have for that phenomenon. Probably nothing useful. They let Rangiku cry. I let Rangiku cry. I figure we're all pretty useless. But if she says she loves me…

"Y'oughtta keep this. I don't need a reminder. I'll be waiting. In that place right before you wake up, where you're a little bit confused, an' a little bit anxious, an' a little bit hopeful. I'll be there. You and me. It's always been. It always will be. You're good at catchin' me, Rangiku. I'll make sure to go slow so you can, when you're done havin' t' count days."

Evertyhing is getting harder to hear and feel. The last thing I see is her irritated, wet, grinning face. A good thing to worship as I die.

The last words I hear are loud and clear, and beautiful.

"Shut up. You don't need to go slow, you damn deceitful malicious hero. I'll find you. It's my turn now, anyway." Rangiku presses tight to my mangled body. Rangiku kisses me again, like on that day, but longer this time, a vow, and it is sublime.

And then I fade, with the taste of persimmons in my mouth, my mouth that finally slackens in relief, for it need no longer smile, and one more "happy birthday" on my lips.

"_Love of mine_

_Someday you will die_

_But I'll be close behind_

_I'll follow you into the dark_

_No blinding light_

_No tunnels to gates of white_

_Just our hands clasped so tight_

_Waiting for the hint of a spark_

_You and me _

_Have seen everything to see_

_From Bangkok to Calgary_

_And the soles of your shoes_

_Are all worn down_

_The time for sleep is now_

_There's nothing to cry about_

_Cause we'll hold each other soon_

_In the blackest of rooms_

_If heaven and hell decide_

_That they both are satisfied_

_Illuminate the 'No''s on their vacancy signs_

_If there's no one beside you_

_When your soul embarks_

_Then I will follow you into the dark."_

_~Death Cab for Cutie_


End file.
